The following understanding is formed after my recent direct experiences regarding determinism and free will. Ultimately, both are false.

The answer is more complex than most people care to admit. Let me explain.

First of all, let’s get free will out of the way.

There is absolutely no entity separate from other causes and conditions that can exercise an independent will and go against this nexus of causality in the moment.

Free will is an illusion. No doubt about that.

However, all of the future moments being already pre-determined is not the natural conclusion that arise from this understanding. Determinism is also false.

Even if you knew the entire locality and movements of all particles in the universe, you’d not foresee its exact unfoldment in a scientific manner 5 years from now.

This system is designed in non-linear complex causality, not in some predictable linear (‘b comes after a’) causality. 

Understanding the system’s theory is important to get a feel for what I’m saying. But ultimately, direct experience of this interconnected causality will allow you to see how determinism is not the answer.

The universe, your life, your decisions, the way your life unfolds is probabilistic. I  will make a practical connection to your life to illustrate my point.

Everything in the universe is playing a role in shaping us, however, this particular system we have in each of us (the mind/brain) is at the center of this nexus of causality. It has the potential to literally shape and design itself.

What it CAN’T do is to determine with exact precision how this probability wavelength is going to collapse in a particular moment as the present moment unfolds. 

But it has the ability to determine which way the probability wavelength (which exists in each moment) will collapse in future moments as a potentiality. Your mind generates both past and future in the present.

 After all, some present moment decisions are made with 49,9 – 50,1 sort of probability. It can go either way. Tipping the scales one way or the other is a potential our minds can utilize to shape our future selves.

With the way we respond to the world and form intentions, our ‘self’ is designed and re-designed in each moment.

That is what the training in spirituality is all about.

The fact of observation and seeing the consequences of our actions/decisions allow our minds to shape its programming and change the future by accumulating micro-adjustments.

This is one of the things we do in meditation. Try to become conscious of what you are doing.

You are a self-organizing system. You are an unfolding series of probabilities that are contingent on absolutely everything that has happened everywhere throughout all time. 

What ‘you’ do, matters!

What intentions you form before you take an action, matters!

What decisions you make and what response you choose to adopt after the consequences of these decisions, matters!

It is rather ironic that the toxic self help industry platitude ‘You can create a different future self’ is not all that off the mark here.

Sure, self help methods of actualizing this potential is highly toxic and ineffective but it does contain a kernel of truth you can be conscious of in direct experience.

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